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ActionSA is disappointed by President Ramaphosa’s weak and reactionary address, which does nothing to address the immigration crisis created by the ANC and perpetuated by the failing GNU government.

Rather than presenting a clear shift in approach, which we believe must anchor on mass deportations and the urgent capacitation of enforcement capacity, the President merely repackaged the same failed and tired talking points that have characterised the ANC’s decades-long failure to secure South Africa’s borders and effectively address illegal immigration.

Perhaps indicative of the weakness of his address, the President once again refused to engage with the media. South Africans deserve answers to questions about what, if anything, is genuinely different in the measures announced today. Instead, the President avoided scrutiny and offered little more than a scripted repetition of the same failed policies that have done nothing to address the crisis.

While the Border Management Authority remains underfunded, under equipped and under resourced, any commitment by the President to ramp up enforcement is dead on arrival.  It increasingly appears that the government is acting only in response to manufactured outrage from foreign governments that are unwilling to confront the consequences of their own failures. Rather than acknowledging the immense and real social and economic burden that unchecked illegal immigration places on South Africa, these governments have chosen to grandstand, deflect responsibility and deliberately misrepresent the legitimate calls of South Africans for urgent and meaningful immigration reform.

ActionSA believes that South Africans have every right to demand secure borders, the enforcement of immigration laws and an immigration system that serves the interests of the country. Attempts to vilify these concerns do nothing to solve the problem. 

Issued by ActionSA President Herman Mashaba